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Is the law good? How can it be improved? These questions are frequently addressed, both in traditional doctrinal research and in interdisciplinary legal research. In this article, I elaborate a general argumentative framework for justifying evaluations and recommendations for legislative reform, and I identify the chains of argument for making evaluations and recommendations. This may help researchers to make their arguments explicit and transparent, and then to justify the choices made for each of the steps in the argument. This enables readers – as well as authors – to assess whether the argument's conclusions are sound and convincing. A key problem in making these arguments concerns the choice of standards for evaluation. I suggest that they can be best understood in terms of the underlying values. In order to make all-things-considered evaluations and normative recommendations, interdisciplinary cooperation between doctrinal, sociolegal, and legal-philosophical researchers is necessary. Therefore, individual researchers will usually have to settle for pro tanto evaluations and recommendations.

Is the law good? How can it be improved? These questions are frequently addressed, both in traditional doctrinal research and in interdisciplinary legal research. In this article, I elaborate a general argumentative framework for justifying evaluations and recommendations for legislative reform, and I identify the chains of argument for making evaluations and recommendations. This may help researchers to make their arguments explicit and transparent, and then to justify the choices made for each of the steps in the argument. This enables readers – as well as authors – to assess whether the argument's conclusions are sound and convincing. A key problem in making these arguments concerns the choice of standards for evaluation. I suggest that they can be best understood in terms of the underlying values. In order to make all-things-considered evaluations and normative recommendations, interdisciplinary cooperation between doctrinal, socio-legal, and legal-philosophical researchers is necessary. Therefore, individual researchers will usually have to settle for pro tanto evaluations and recommendations.

ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that law has two often neglected functions: the expressive and the communicative functions. They are especially important for legislation on moral issues, such as biomedical ethics and anti-discrimination law. The communicative function of law is a complex one: law may create a normative framework, a vocabulary to structure normative discussions, as well as institutions and procedures that promote further discussion. The expressive function of law is at stake when it expresses which fundamental standards, which values are regarded as important. The recognition of these functions is not only important for descriptive purposes; it is also fruitful for normative theory.

Einleitung Bis vor kurzem schlen die Neutralitätsthese zu den Kernelementen des modernen Liberalismus zu gehören. Diese These wird gewöhnlich so definiert, dass der Staat sich gegenüber verschledenen Konzeptionen des Guten neutral verhalten soil. Es ist nicht besonders schwer zu verstehen, warum sich gerade Liberale für diese These einsetzen: Sie gewährleistet ein hohes Mass an Freiheit gegenüber staatlicher Intervention-und indem sie die umstrittensten Vorstellungen aus der Diskussion heraus halt, erleichtert sie die Errichtung einer gemeinsamen Grundlage für Politik und Recht in einer pluralistischen Gesellschaft. .